Every addict has to hit bottom before they can get better.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to welcome you aboard this non-stop review of Flight, a film that won’t be coming soon to any in-seat entertainment systems near you. It’s the latest movie from Robert Zemeckis, the Spielberg protégé who made audiences whoop and cheer with Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit before being acclaimed for his dopiest work (Forrest Gump), then getting waylaid by motion-capture animation (you know: cadaverous-looking cartoons such as The Polar Express).

Flight is Zemeckis’s first live-action film since Cast Away 13 years ago. Remember that? Terrifying plane crash, exotic desert island, one of American cinema’s great actors bonding with a volleyball. Well, Flight is similar, except for the desert island and the volleyball. It’s another platform for an outstanding performer. And Denzel Washington, like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, possesses the nonchalance that can only come when an actor asks himself: “But where would I even keep a third Oscar?”

Washington is your captain for today, the seasoned pilot “Whip” Whittaker. Whip is cruising at an altitude of several thousand feet before he even enters the cockpit, due to the liberal quantities of cocaine snorted during a hedonistic night with his colleague Katerina (Nadine Velazquez). Katerina is one of your flight attendants and will shortly be passing through the cabin with a dazed expression on her face.

Ten minutes later, we will all be wearing that look following a spell of turbulence in which the elements treat the plane in the manner of a petulant child demolishing its rattle. Whip toasts his success in reaching calmer skies by decanting vodka miniatures into an orange juice bottle. But his celebration is premature. A malfunction at 30,000 feet wakes him rudely from his boozy slumber and demands the sort of crash landing that tends not to be covered in pre-flight safety announcements. Please make sure your disbelief is securely suspended at this time.

There are emergency exits located around the auditorium but using these during this sequence of mortifying excitement is to be discouraged. This stuff, after all, is what Zemeckis does best: it’s as if he set himself the challenge of traumatising all over again those cinemagoers who had recently returned to flying after seeing the air crash in Cast Away. However, passengers are advised to adopt the brace position after landing in order to absorb the impact of a gripping film turning abruptly into a moribund one. It’s not only the plane that hits the ground.

Please ensure at this time that all memories of Hollywood films about redemption are stored neatly at the back of your mind to prevent them coming loose and obstructing your viewing experience. I appreciate this may be difficult. Whip’s life is such a plane crash, even before he is involved in a plane crash, that there’s no way Flight isn’t going to soften into a journey of moral improvement culminating in a chastening public confession. Every addict has to hit bottom before they can get better: Whip just happens to take several hundred airline passengers with him when he does so. It’s worth noting, though, that his addiction plays no part in the accident –his handling of the disintegrating aircraft is expert. But this is the nearest Flight gets to ambiguity. From here, it’s only a matter of time before a flinty thriller becomes a slick issue-of-the-week TV movie, complete with exhortations to God and a comforting coda.

At the end of Flight, it would be appreciated if you could dispose of any rubbish in the receptacles provided – if in doubt, just follow the example of the film, which divests itself unsentimentally of any characters for which it has no further use. There’s the junkie (Kelly Reilly) whose story intersects briefly with Whip’s. Or the wily lawyer (Don Cheadle) sniffing out legal loopholes. Or Whip’s drug-dealing hippie pal, a sub-Dr Gonzo character so poorly written that it seems somehow right that John Goodman should give the most witless performance of his career in the part.

Flight is Washington’s show: his performance is emotionally muscular and admirably bereft of vanity. Zemeckis emerges with less distinction. I wouldn’t say he should take time to locate his nearest exit from filmmaking but he might keep in mind that his best work may be behind him.

Ryan Gilbey is the New Statesman's film critic. He is also the author of It Don't Worry Me (Faber), about 1970s US cinema, and a study of Groundhog Day in the "Modern Classics" series (BFI Publishing). He was named reviewer of the year in the 2007 Press Gazette awards.